Food for a thought that is here to stay
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Human Rights Reader 93
The Rise of Rights
1. The human rights-based approach (RBA) represents a historical
evolution from clientelism to citizenship. It is still often
contested by many development agencies; at best, their state-
ments on the RBA tend to reflect 'a compromise' on the issue.
[The World Bank, for example, is 'cautious' about human rights
(HR) in its official remarks; many bilateral donors are inter-
ested, but promote fairly watered-down definitions of HR --
mostly relating them to civil and political rights only]. But,
regardless of this attitude, the RBA is here to stay and to stay
as a crucial link in our current attempts to eradicate poverty -
- any efforts to 'sanitize' its underlying political processes
notwithstanding.
2. Deciding which rights are most important has also become a
political debate. We still stand firm on the principle that hu-
man (people's) rights are indivisible. Nevertheless, we can
agree that the right to participation can be seen as the entry
point to realizing all other rights: it is the-right-to-claim-
other-rights. For this, excuse the obvious, participation has to
be understood as a right, and not as an instrument for greater
aid effectiveness. This alone means switching from a technical
to a political understanding of development, one that facili-
tates-the-inclusion-of-the-voices-of-the-marginalized who cur-
rently face barriers that prevent them from claiming their
rights: The rationale of poverty reduction no longer derives
from the poor having needs, but from them having rights!
3. The RBA is all about struggling for greater global distribu-
tive justice -- including claims to aid, to debt relief and to
fair terms of trade. It does not talk of (voiceless) beneficiar-
ies, but of (partner) citizens, i.e., someone with rights rather
than someone receiving welfare. Centering demands on people's
rights means that our work will often entail extracting conces-
sions from the more powerful duty-bearers who run the government
and or otherwise control the needed resources. So one of the ma-
jor challenges for poor people is to use the legal system to
promote justice -- making the laws work for them rather than for
the elites. In this sense, rights are shaped by the actual
struggle of people, i.e., through them acquiring and using a new
understanding of what they are justly entitled to. That is why
rights sound threatening to governments and/or elites; they are
caught off-guard in responding to these new demands and may re-
act in politically unpredictable ways. That is why agencies en-
gaging with their partners in using a RBA must act responsibly
and use the right tactics when supporting the powerless to take
action; this, since they risk starting a struggle they are not
sure to win.
Claudio Schuftan
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
mailto:claudio@hcmc.netnma.vn
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Mostly taken from IDS Policy Briefing Issue 17, May 2003.